George Meeker

A professor perfects a working television system and invites investors to a demonstration, only to die on camera when a mysterious ray intercuts the broadcast. Bela Lugosi plays a dual role — the professor's loyal assistant and a sinister European interloper — in a whodunit where the murder weapon is the new technology itself. Shot in 1935, when television was still laboratory speculation, the film treats live broadcast as exotic enough to carry a thriller. June Collyer plays the professor's daughter caught between suspects. Made by poverty-row outfit Cameo Pictures, it entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Thriller · Sci-Fi

Singer Angie Evans gives up her own rising career to marry struggling crooner Ken Conway, and when his star finally ascends she finds herself alone with a baby, a bottle, and a husband who's never home. Susan Hayward earned her first Academy Award nomination as the wife sliding into alcoholism, with Lee Bowman, Eddie Albert, and Marsha Hunt in support. Walter Wanger produced and Stuart Heisler directed this stark melodrama, released by Universal-International. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Drama · Noir

A racetrack melodrama from Grand National, one of the scrappier studios of the late 1930s. Gordon Jones plays Rinty, a trainer whose string of bad luck ends when he inherits a colt nobody wants — a horse with heart but no pedigree. Marsha Hunt co-stars as the owner who stakes him, and the picture builds to the big race where a lifetime of debts rides on one finish. Directed by Charles Lamont, who spent the decade grinding out programmers for every poverty-row outfit before settling in as Abbott and Costello's house director at Universal. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Drama